The language spoken by the people of Latium, in Italy. The Latins are called aborigines of Italy. Alba Longa was head of the Latin League, and, as Rome was a colony of Alba Longa, it is plain to see how the Roman tongue was Latin.

1

The earliest extant specimen of the Latin language is a fragment of the hymn of the Fratres Arvles (3 syl.), a priestly brotherhood, which offered, every 10th of May, a public sacrifice for the fertility of the fields.Sellar: Roman Poets of the Republic, chap. ii. p. 34.

Classical Latin. The Latin of the best authors about the time of Augustus, as Livy, Tacitus, and Cicero (prose), Horace, Virgil, and Ovid (poets).

2

Late Latin. The period which followed the Augustan age. This period contains the Church Fathers.